Frozen Salt
by LimeGreenSockFeet
Summary: Skeletal. Blood-soaked. Driven insane. Everyone dead, including those still alive, for it is a life sentence, even if you are released from this hell. Those who survive bear witness to the harsh horror of this accursed place just as much as the bodies buried in the bitter earth. These are the tales from that unplottable fortress in the North Sea. These are the prisoners of Azkaban.
1. Prologue

**Prologue**

The dark stone walls were slick with sea spray; every corridor awash in a sickly white-grey light that made the prison feel colder than it already was. The wind from the North Sea was frigid and piercing, and the coarse, striped uniforms were of little protection against it. Throughout the stone fortress roamed the black and floating guards, their rattling breaths mingling with the moans of half-dead prisoners too weak even to drag themselves away from the hooded figures. The chill in the air only added to the lack hope—the crushing mental fever caused by fear, malnutrition and loneliness. To survive this hell, you had to be already insane. Any normal person sentenced here would go mad eventually. It was a simple matter of time. This was Azkaban. This was the cold, dark hell of the wizarding world in which people were tossed into, locked away, forgotten about by all but the emotionless dementors that fed on their souls.

If you peered into any given cell, you would see a gaunt, haggard prisoner in a tiny stone room. They were likely huddled in the corner, as far away from the dementors as they could get. In the opposite corner you would find a soiled mattress, swollen with mold and insects. Most slept on the floor, cold and slimy though it was. Their uniform, once striped black and white, was beige and grey from years of exposure and filth and hung slack on their emaciated frame. Their face was shocking; a skeleton draped with a thin layer of skin—so pale it was almost translucent in the bleached, milky light that snuck in through a window no bigger than their fist. But the itching and skin sores caused by the infestation of lice, and the constant, inescapable dampness that rotted their teeth and nails was nothing in comparison to the horror of the guards—the dementors that patrolled Azkaban with their dead, scabby hands and soulless cruelty. There was no conscience amongst dementors; no humanity. They preyed on the souls here indiscriminately and without warning. It would almost seem less cruel if the otherworldly guards of Azkaban _were_ full of malice and hatred—if they weren't so deadened. It seemed almost a…business transaction. Something so ordinary that they couldn't be bothered even to feel anything about it. Although (by order of the Ministry) dementors were not permitted to administer the dreaded kiss without authorization, it wasn't rare to find a prisoner dead in their cell following an encounter with a guard. True, death from natural causes was not uncommon, but the contorted, sick look of terror left on their faces would suggest that the end of their life was anything but common. Not that the technicalities of it truly mattered—the only visitors to Azkaban were high-ranking Ministry officials (occasionally the Minister himself) and Aurors who were depositing new prisoners.

No, whether a prisoner was murdered or they died of sickness and decay was of little consequence. No one ever truly left Azkaban, even the rare few who survived their sentence and were released. The type of psychological torture that went on within those walls…no one left that behind. Instead, they remained there, locked up, in their own minds. Nightmares, flashbacks, pale and sweating panic attacks—no one left that island in the North Sea. In that way, Azkaban was always a death sentence, no matter how much time you served. Some understood this before arriving, but everyone learned. Their lives as they knew them were over—the reason why every single day, without exception, at least one prisoner's life ended at their own hands. There were no traditional means of killing oneself. There were no bedsheets or anything protruding from the walls for this exact reason, but desperation always finds a way. Prisoners found starved to death surrounded by a week's worth of daily slop; cracked bones and bloody skulls with broken noses and crushed eye sockets from hurling their bodies into the stone wall over and over again; lying in a pool of dark and brackish blood, their mouths smeared red from chewing through their own wrists.

And afterwards—when they were found by the cold and toneless dementors who could no longer sense a life force from within their cell—they were buried on the island outside the wall of the prison, consigned beneath the freezing, bitter earth where they would remain until their bodies were eaten away at by the sea and salt.

Some—those who were family to victims of the Dark Lord and his Death Eaters, or staunch upholders of wizarding law—condoned and even celebrated the practices that took place at Azkaban. Others—what some would call sympathizers—were appalled by what went on behind the iron walls. Many of them protested what they claimed was barbaric and sadistic treatment. The rest—the vast majority of the wizarding world—had no idea what went on within this forbidding stone fortress. But the only people we have not heard from—arguably the most important voices in this debate—are the prisoners themselves.


	2. Barty Crouch Jr

His first nights in Azkaban were the worst of it. It was freezing cold and filthy, but the physical pain was nothing compared to the mental torture. He had never felt such blackness—like everything good in his life had been swallowed up forever. He screamed for his mother until his throat was raw and bloody.

That was a year ago. It seemed as though each day was the length of ten—the same cycle of horrors on repeat—a never-ending loop of suffering that slowly leached away his remaining sanity. He didn't scream anymore now. He didn't make noise at all. He had always been lean, but what body mass he had quickly melted away, leaving a corpse cloaked with sallow skin.

Now Barty lay on his side in a pool of rancid liquid—a vile combination of soured water and bodily fluids. He watched a maggot crawl out of yesterday's bread. He could barely move. It wouldn't be long now. He'd been losing consciousness more and more often, which was a bit of a blessing in itself, but he knew in his lucid moments that it meant his body was failing.

The man down the hall said he was "losing the will to live." In the beginning he tried to talk to Barty—asked him questions about school and quidditch and his family. He didn't answer.

His father was the heartless Ministry sod who'd sent him to Azkaban in the first place. Useless, pathetic old man. What good was having a father that worked in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement if he refused to pardon his only son? And his stupid mother, she was of no use to him either. The spineless woman had done nothing to stop his father from throwing him in here. As a boy, Barty had loved his mother, unlike his boring, workaholic father who'd insisted on that god-awful name.

"_Bartemius Crouch Jr_."

He despised his name almost as much as the man who gave it to him.

He remembered both of them at his trial—his father's cold indifference and Mother's pitiful display of emotion. She'd blubbered throughout the whole thing, and fainted when his sentence was handed down. Oh, she'd begged his father to clear him of all charges, he knew. The night before they'd taken him away he'd lain downstairs, bound to his bed by a Sticking Charm, listening to them.

"My baby!" She had wailed. "He's just a boy, Barty, please, there _must_ be something you can do!"

Of course the old fool wouldn't hear of it—"Elizabeth, your son is a _Death Eater_."

She gasped sharply. "_Our_ son!"

"…Our son." His voice was sober, chastened.

Then Mother, quieter: "I don't believe you."

"He tortured Frank and Alice Longbottom so excessively the Healers at St. Mungo's say they won't ever regain their sanity."

"Not my boy. He wouldn't." She'd sobbed.

Barty couldn't see through the ceiling, but he could picture well enough the pathetic display taking place. His father would let her cry in his arms and pretend to listen before feeding her the company line about upholding Wizarding law. He never gave a damn about either of them—him or Mother.

Barty had to strain to hear his father's muffled voice. "Elsie, we have witnesses that saw him do it. The proof is…incontrovertible."

So what? His stupid father wouldn't know proof if it hexed him between the eyes.

"My sweet boy," his mother gulped through tears. "How could we let this happen, Barty?" His father murmured something to her, too quiet for Barty to hear through the vent.

"Please," Her voice was raw. "Bartemius—"

"He'll have a trial. I can't—it's all I can do." He sounded surprisingly guilt-ridden, but Barty knew it was all an act. _The great Bartemius Crouch_. His precious Department of Magical Law Enforcement was more important to him than his family would ever be. And if he had any doubts about sending his only son to Azkaban, it was only because he knew his reputation would be destroyed—not because he held any affection for him. His father had never loved him. Not like he loved Barty's mother. His son had always been a failure in his eyes. Never smart enough or organized enough or ambitious enough.

He was ambitious now, though, wasn't he? He was one of the Dark Lord's most faithful servants, proving his loyalty time and time again; rising through the ranks quickly. He was the one chosen over Black and Malfoy and Rosier—handpicked by the Dark Lord for the job.

Guess that wasn't the sort of ambition his father was looking for.

He had no remorse for those two foolish aurors he'd tortured into insanity. Oh, he'd pled not guilty at his trial, begging his father's mercy and crying for his mother. His fear was real—the thought of Azkaban really did terrify him—but his innocence was a farce. His father knew it, of course, but Mother had always been gullible when it came to her darling son. He'd been careful to keep her unsuspecting, even when he was a boy. His second year at Hogwarts, Professor Slughorn had sent an owl home, expressing his concerns about Barty's "display of disturbing behavior"—He'd caught him in the dungeons trying to Imperius one of the first years. Of course, Slughorn couldn't know that he'd nicked the letter from his office and replaced it with one that said he'd been recognized for outstanding marks in his class. Narcissa Black had charmed it to look like Slughorn's handwriting. Once she'd taught him how, he did the same for every letter home, not that there were many after that—he quickly learned the art of deceit.

At school, he soon found he wasn't the only one. Evan Rosier, Regulus Black, Severus Snape, Avery and Mulciber. Then Rowle joined their group, followed by the Carrows and Scabior and Travers. It wasn't long before they earned a reputation for ruthlessness and spite—no one dared interfere with them. They ruled Hogwarts and anyone who got in their way quickly learned what they were capable of.

All that was gone now, though. He was cold and hungry and reliving his most awful memories over and over again. He lay slumped on the wet stone, too far gone even to shiver, let alone drag his weak body to the bed. "Barty?" A soft voice muddled into his head. No one had called him by name in a year. Opening his eyes, he saw them there, standing outside his cell. A fever dream, surely.

Then a dementor, waving the door open with a rusty screech. Then a voice—the man from down the hall. "Crouch. When's my trial?" Then perfectly shined black Oxfords in front of him. Then beside them, a pair of tiny feet in red lace-up shoes he'd purchased from Hogsmeade when he was a third year. He blinked slowly.

"_Mother_?"


	3. Barty Crouch Sr

The journey to Azkaban was grueling. Elsie was already so frail, and the long boat ride across the bitter, harsh sea only served to weaken her further. Standing on the rocky shore of the island, Bartemius Crouch wrapped his cloak around his wife's tiny shoulders. She shivered violently.

The freezing sea spray mingled with the unnatural chill that could only be inspired by thousands of dementors. He felt his insides grow cold and pulled his wife closer, as though he could still protect her. Elsie clutched his arm, and looked up at him. She nodded in response to his unspoken question and, though he could feel her trembling against him, the fear in her eyes was overpowered by her resolve. His heart sank, but he tightened his grip around her shoulders and led her into Azkaban. She would go to the ends of the earth for that boy.

Bartemius Crouch had done everything short of Confunding his wife to convince her not to go through with this. Not only would they be aiding a convicted death eater in escaping from prison, but she wanted to take his place? It was _mad_. It would be a miracle if he didn't end up in Azkaban himself—though perhaps they'd be cellmates, he thought darkly.

He could have refused her of course, but she never would have forgiven him. He loved her so much. He couldn't deny her this. She had sacrificed so much throughout the course of their marriage, dutifully raising their son while he spent so much of his time at the Ministry. Then, just when it seemed as though all of his hard work would finally pay off—when he was all but guaranteed to be the next Minister for Magic, when he would have finally been able to slow down and come home early, to spend time with his family—the news about their son.

Not just a criminal, not even just a Death Eater—the worst kind of Death Eater. He had _tortured_ those two aurors. Frank and Alice Longbottom.

Barty had been one of the first to arrive at the house. He had seen the chunks of hair ripped from their heads, the carpet so drenched with blood that it appeared black. Had seen Frank and Alice naked on the floor, mouths slack and drooling. Destroyed from hours of the Cruciatus Curse.

He had gone to see Frank and Alice in St. Mungo's, before the trial. He wasn't sure what he had expected to find, but the reality was appalling. The two of them shared a room on the fourth floor—the long-term residents ward. Augusta was there with the young boy, Neville. He couldn't have been more than 2 years old. He could see in her eyes the same question that haunted his own: how could he have raised such a monster?

"It'll be a life sentence for them." He said quietly. "I'm so sorry. I—I wish there were more I could do."

The young boy began crying before Mrs. Longbottom could respond and she busied herself with him, rummaging in her purse for a pacifier. Behind her, Alice stared at the wall while Frank rocked back and forth.

Muttering apologies, Barty ducked into the hall and outside the hospital, where he was violently sick in the flowerbed. "Apparition." He panted, when a young Healer asked if he was alright.

His son had done that. His boy.

It had devastated Elsie. His poor Elsie. Their son was everything to her. He worked so often when Barty was young that she and Winky had practically raised him alone. She had devoted her entire life, only to be left with a fanatical, bloodthirsty son and a husband who had nothing to show for his years of neglect.

Their entire life destroyed in a single moment. All the hours he put in, only to be appointed the head of International Magical Cooperation. All the missed birthdays and late nights at the office, just to watch Cornelius Fudge be made Minister for Magic while his family was ripped apart. He and Elsie had never been whole again.

So, yes, he supposed he could have refused her. ...But not really.

Still, this didn't deter him from doing everything he could to convince her otherwise.

"Elizabeth, I'm begging you to reconsider."

"No."

"Elsie—"

"It's only a matter of time, Barty, you heard what the Healers said. I only have a few weeks left."

"Elsie."

"He'll die in there. Barty, he's our only son and he'll _die_ in that awful place. And you'll be all alone."

Bartemius said nothing.

"At least this way you'll have one of us. Please, Bartemius. For me."

"Very well," he had agreed tightly and left the room, unwilling to let his wife see him crying.

As they approached the bars, Bartemius wrapped a protective arm around his wife as a dementor slid the bars open with a wave of its scabby hand. Holding Barty's hand, Elsie took a tentative step inside their son's cell.

She looked at her husband, horrified. Bartemius stood frozen, the color all but drained from his face. It was painfully clear that their son was near death. He was huddled in the corner of the room, ashen and skinny as a rail. His breathing came in slow, rattling gasps, each one punctuated by a watery cough. His skin was sallow; eyes were swollen with infection. He had a coarse, uneven beard and long greasy hair. His scalp was red and scaly, with patches missing where he had scratched at the sores and lice.

"Mother." he croaked. His voice was hoarse from lack of use. Elsie reached for him, tears streaming down her cheeks. Bartemius pushed her behind him and bent down himself, pulling Barty into a sitting position. His stomach lurched at the smell.

"Father."

The last time Bartemius had seen his son was at his trial. Barty had begged him for mercy—swore that he hadn't done it. His face was white—his eyes were wide with terror. His wife was crying next to him—gasping, heart wrenching sobs. All Bartemius could feel was numb.

"Father, please! _I'm your son_!" He had screamed up at him.

"_I have no son_." the words had come out of his mouth as though they belonged to someone else.

Looking down at his feeble, deteriorating son, Barty remembered that day with painful clarity. He had never been able to purge the guilt he felt over sending him to Azkaban. There was nothing he could have done, of course—justice had to be served. The Wizengamot had demanded it and the Longbottoms had earned it. And his son had deserved it.

Looking up at him, he blinked sluggishly, as though trying to work out whether or not they were really there. Bartemius nodded curtly and thrust a small vial of Restorative Draught at his son. His hands were shaking too badly to open it, so Barty, his own hands trembling, waved his wand and uncorked the bottle. His son drank it quietly and sighed, a bit of color returning to his face.

"You've come to say goodbye." Their son managed a small, bitter smile. "It won't be long I expect."

"No. Your mother and I—your mother is very ill. The healers at St. Mungo's do not believe she has much time left. As a final request, she has asked me to free her son. I know I have not been the husband that she deserves, but this final thing I will do for her."

"Breaking the law for your family," Barty Jr. tsked. "What would the Ministry think?"

Bartemius' eyes flashed. "If you think this has not caused me great distress, you are gravely mistaken. I am abandoning every principle and ideal I have worked my entire life to uphold." He hissed. "I cannot believe I am allowing this to happen."

"Well, father. I'm impressed. Putting your family first. Must be hard for you."

"Do not misunderstand me. This is not for you. No matter what personal guilt I have endured because of it, you are exactly where you belong. I am doing this for your mother. She has suffered enough because of your blatant disregard for the— "

"Barty." Her soft hand on his arm quelled his temper. "There's no time."

He knew she was right—if she truly wished to go through with this, they couldn't afford to wait any longer.

"Elizabeth, are you absolutely certain?" His face was pale, his expression grim. "It's not too late, you do not have to do this."

"I'm sure." Her eyes were steadfast and unafraid.

He nodded, unable to speak past the lump in his throat. She reached up and cupped his cheek with her tiny hand, kissing him sweetly on the mouth. "I love you, Barty Crouch."

A strangled noise came from within his chest and he gathered her into his arms. "You are breaking my heart."

Pulling back, she brushed her tears away and took a deep breath, steadying herself.

Bartemius reached into his robes and produced two glass vials of Polyjuice potion and a small box containing several of his wife's hairs. He placed one in the first vial and the mixture turned a pale red, fizzing slightly. He motioned to Barty Jr. and his son plucked a fistful of his own hair and dropped it in the second vial. This one turned a grayish-green and thickened, taking on the color and consistency of lake mud.

Bartemius handed the thin red liquid to his son, who gave it a once-over before downing it all in one gulp. Immediately, his skin began to bubble and contort. His hair lengthened and leached into a dull grey-blonde. His legs and arms shrank but his fingers lengthened. Piano fingers, Bartemius' mother used to say about Elsie.

When the transformation was complete, there were two Mrs. Crouch's in the tiny cell.

Reluctantly, Barty handed his wife the glass filled with their son's essence. She raised her eyes to meet his, fifty years of memories passing between them in a single instant. She stared unblinkingly at him, as if to tell him how much she loved him. He nodded, conveying to her a thousand apologies and unspoken declarations of love in return.

She lifted the vial to her lips and took a drink, nearly choking on the foul potion. Her eyes watered and Barty grimaced. Steeling herself, she held her nose and consumed the rest of it, forcing herself to swallow. She gasped and clutched her stomach, eyes glassy with pain. Her knees buckled and she fell to the floor, gasping. Elsie's transformation, it seemed to Barty, was slower. Perhaps because it was so painful for him to watch the one he loved so much becoming the one who had destroyed their lives. He looked away, unable to bear it.

When it was finished, Elsie Crouch lay crumpled on the grimy stone, now in the body of their son. In the corner, Barty Jr. lay, staring at his father through the eyes of his mother. Barty felt sick.

Elsie got to her feet shakily. He stiffened himself as she walked towards him. There was space between them, but she didn't reach for him. Didn't touch him with their son's hands. Didn't speak with his voice. She only looked at him with his eyes. _Her_ eyes. Their son was born with the same dusky green as Elsie, rather than his father's clear brown. Barty met her gaze resolutely and she was overcome with emotion. Her brave, sad, old Bartemius. She had never loved him more. He, who had sacrificed everything to give her and Barty Jr. a good life. She knew how harsh he was with himself; how he blamed himself for the collapse of their family.

"My sweet Barty." She whispered. "I love you so much."

With a jagged breath, he lifted a hand to his wife's cheek—his son's cheek—stopping short an inch before touching him. Her.

"I love you." His words were thick and garbled with emotion. Words he had thought so many times and spoken far too few. He must have been having a heart attack. He had never felt such physical pain.

Turning from his wife, he looked at his son, still huddled in the corner.

"Come," he said to him, but the boy was too weak to walk—Barty had no other choice but to pick him up and carry him. He couldn't have weighed more that when he was ten years old.

Stepping out of the cell with his son in his arms, he summoned the dementor floating at the end of the hallway. Barty turned away as it glided over to the bars—in part because he was afraid the dementor would somehow sense the exchange, but more than that because he knew he couldn't survive the sight of Elizabeth on the other side of that door.

He heard the reverberating clang of the iron and willed himself to keep walking. He could hear the whispers and screams of the other prisoners as he carried his son in his wife's body through the dark corridors. To the dementors, all was as it should be. They sensed one dying human entering Azkaban, and one dying human leaving. The other prisoners saw Bartemius Crouch entering and leaving Azkaban with his sickly, grief-stricken wife clinging to him. Only three people in the world knew that the frail woman Bartemius carried in his arms was a convicted Death Eater—his only son—executing the first successful escape in the history of Azkaban prison.

Bartemius found himself outside, the winter sky a bright and painful contrast to the gloom of the prison. By the time he reached the shore, his arms trembled from physical exhaustion and heartbreak. He placed his son in the small wooden boat and stepped inside himself, swaying unsteadily. The body of his wife looked up at him with something in those blue eyes that Barty hadn't seen there before. Something hard and…wrong. A darkness. Bartemius looked away sharply, turning his focus to the oars while simultaneously wiping an unwelcome tear from his eye. Wandlessly, he charmed the oars to row them back to the mainland. As the island became smaller, the air grew warmer but, in fact, Barty Crouch would never be warm again.

With one final glance at the black fortress, Bartemius Crouch left the love of his life behind forever.

And he would carry that unnatural chill with him for the rest of his life.


	4. Mrs Crouch

_Cold. It was so cold. An empty, bleak light filtered in through the tiny window. She was too short to see out of it, but it wouldn't have mattered even if she could. She was too weak to stand. She thought she heard a bird. Or maybe it was just the wind._

* * *

Elsie Crouch was losing her sanity—she could feel it. More and more often she would regain consciousness to find that hours had passed without her realizing it. She would slip in and out of flashbacks, and it had become increasingly difficult to determine what was real and what was only in her mind. She wouldn't have had any sense of time at all if it weren't for the Polyjuice potion. She kept the vials under her grimy mattress, taking the tiniest sip every few minutes. The dementors wouldn't have been able to tell the difference, of course, but there was a man across the hall that could see into her cell, and all this would be for nothing if anyone found out what she and Barty had done.

Azkaban was more horrifying than she could have ever imagined. But, in a way, this realization was comforting—she would gladly withstand this torment if it meant her son didn't have to. Sitting at home with the knowledge that he was all alone in this wicked place had been unbearable—every morning remembering that he was suffering here; waiting out his life sentence in this godforsaken prison.

Yes, as terrible as this place was, she could endure it with the understanding that she was saving her sweet boy.

* * *

_She tried to think of her sweet boy—happy thoughts, not thoughts of him imprisoned where she was now sitting. It was too cold. Her eyelashes, wet with tears and the endless damp, were frozen together, forming a painful, spiky mass that she had to pull apart every morning. The combination of freezing sea spray and the hair-raising, unholy guards created a bitter chill so unnatural it was unlike anything she had ever experienced. She had long since given up on trying to perform any magic—it seemed the dementors had drained every drop of magical skill from her, even her ability to produce a wandless fire, something she had once been so talented at._

* * *

She missed her fireplace. It was beautiful—ornate, carved marble and obsidian. She loved to sit in front of it, in her red chenille armchair and knit. When he wasn't working late at the Ministry, Bartemius would join her in the evenings. They'd sit, side by side on the sofa: he with a brandy and The Daily Prophet, and she with her Witch Weekly magazine. He teased her for reading such "drivel," but he knew the answer to every crossword clue, including the ones about vanity potions and celebrity gossip.

Poor Barty couldn't sit still for ten minutes without falling asleep (no doubt due to the fact that he never got more than five hours on any given night), and Elsie would often wake up, slumped over on his shoulder, to find that it was past midnight. This almost certainly guaranteed that she would have a terrible crick in her neck come morning, but she loved those accidental, unintentional moments with him. Loved seeing his ordinarily worry-lined face so peaceful, reading glasses slipping off the end of his nose.

She would gently shake him awake and they would sit together in silence, listening to the crickets chirping softly outside. After a few minutes, he would take her hand and they would stumble sleepily upstairs, leaving behind the familiar sound of the quietly crackling fire.

* * *

_A low moan echoed through the dank, ghostly halls. She wasn't sure if it came from her. She tried to recall the memory of her warm fireplace, but it was so cold._

* * *

One would think she would be used to the cold—she was always cold. Bartemius was the warm one. Like a werewolf, she used to tell him. He would frown at the comparison and give her a stern look when she put her ice-cold feet on him, but then he would grin and wrap his arms around her. He secretly liked it. It made him feel useful. _She _made him feel useful.

"Do not put those feet on me," he would tell her, right before she got into bed and put those feet on him, curling into his arms and laying her head on his chest. He would roll his eyes and extinguish the lamp before pulling her close and settling into the comfortable mattress.

* * *

_A beetle crawled out of the filthy mattress, its pincers clicking. She squished it, cringing at the sickening crunch it made, and used her bare foot to nudge it into the pile of dirt and bugs in the corner. Every few days, when the pile got too big, she would sweep it underneath the cell door, a little at a time. She would dip her hands into the shallow puddle that collected near the window, in an attempt to wash them. The rancid water left them slimy and sour-smelling, but having a routine—keeping order—was important._

* * *

Order was important to Bartemius. He was a firm believer that everything had its place and should stay _in_ that place, an ideal he tried very hard to impose upon their son. Barty Jr. had been a tornado from the moment he could walk. Winky, their house elf, would laugh and shake her head at the sight of his room in disarray, saying, "Young master Barty, you is making less of a mess if you is _trying_ to destroy the house!"

In fact, Barty Jr. was the very reason the Crouch's had a house elf in the first place. Bartemius was against having an elf on principle, although his family had owned them for generations. When his grandmother died, he was meant to inherit her elf, Winky, but he maintained that their family did not need an elf, and they were perfectly capable of keeping their own home in order. He finally gave in after he came home from work one afternoon to find Barty Jr. (who had just turned three) in the bathtub—so dirty that the water was completely brown—and Elsie, in the living room trying to scrub the mud out of their brand-new Bicorn hide sofa. Winky had come to live with them the very next day, and had been a huge help, right from the start. She had their sofa looking spotless in minutes, and very sweetly helped Elsie wash out the dirt that was still stubbornly clinging to her hair—Barty's magic was already starting to manifest itself, and he had managed to enchant the mud with some kind of sticking charm. It was no trouble for Winky, though. She had simply run her long, spindly fingers through Elsie's blonde curls and the mud had melted away.

* * *

_An icy gust of wind blew her hair into her face, twisting and matting it further. She tried to brush through the tangles with her fingers but it broke in her hands. It was brittle; straw-like, just like her son's. Perhaps, somehow, her sacrifice would make him realize how much she and Bartemius loved him. Perhaps it wasn't too late for him to renounce He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named; for him to return to the sweet boy he once was._

* * *

Barty _had_ been sweet when he was little, and so bright. He'd adored his father. He used to tell everyone that when he grew up he was going to be the Minister for Magic, "just like father!" Elsie would gently remind him that Bartemius was _not_ the Minister and he would reply, "Yeah, not _yet_."

Bartemius loved their son very much, though he didn't tell him as often as Elsie thought he should have. When Barty came home with 12 O.W.L.s, her husband positively swelled with pride, clapping him on the back and buying him a new racing broom. He told anyone who would listen how clever their son was; what a promising career he had ahead of him. He still expected him to go into the Ministry, though Barty long abandoned his desire to follow in his father's footsteps.

She remembered Christmas mornings from when he was a boy. He loved bouncing into her and Barty's bed before the sun had risen, and pulling them downstairs to open gifts. She'd kept a photo of him in her bedside table from the Christmas before he turned nine. He was holding a toy wand and grinning in his red and white pajamas, sandy brown hair sticking up in all directions. He'd been trying to turn his chocolate frog into a galleon, and Bartemius had laughed until his face turned red. She had another picture from that day, tucked into one of their family albums, of the two of them on the couch. Barty sat in his father's lap, pretending very earnestly to read The Prophet with him, and Bartemius, knowing fully well that their son couldn't read yet, was reading bits and pieces of the articles out loud for Barty to hear. ("Ah, a new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor at Hogwarts," "Hmm, tighter restrictions on dragon breeding, yes, I was wondering when they'd implement that.")

But, as the years went by, they grew apart. When he was little, Barty loved his father, always asking him to play games with him or tell him stories. By his first and second years at Hogwarts, he had stopped asking when he would be home or if they could go to Diagon Alley for the weekend. His disappointment was evident, though, and Elsie was constantly trying to run interference between them: "Can't you take the weekend off?," "He's very busy with work, sweetheart," "You need to spend more time with your son," "He works very hard to provide for us," "Please try to come home early for Barty's birthday," "Don't talk about your father that way, he's doing the best he can."

Their son grew bitter and angry with Bartemius. By the time he was 16, he didn't even attempt to disguise his apathy towards his father. At Elsie's urging, Bartemius made a concerted effort to spend time with Barty Jr. over summers and holidays, even taking a few weekends and evenings off. He offered to take him to the Quidditch World Cup ("Can't, I'm going with my friends.") and Diagon Alley ("Why, so you can buy me an ice cream and a Puddlemere United poster? I'm not ten anymore, father."), but their relationship, much to Elsie's disappointment, seemed to be getting worse.

Bartemius was troubled by their son's behavior. He was mouthier than usual—even aggressive— and his friends from Hogwarts were questionable at best. Elsie was sure it was just a phase; he would bring his grades up and meet a nice girl—settle down and start a family and career. Privately, she thought Barty's behavior most likely had more to do with the fact that he _had_ found a girl. He hadn't mentioned anything to her, but Elsie well remembered a time when she suddenly became very secretive and it'd had everything to do with a very handsome Slytherin Head Boy named Bartemius Crouch.

She wasn't as certain, though, after Bartemius found a book on dark magic in their son's room. He said it was for school—a Defense Against the Dark Arts essay—but he had been so angry when his father confronted him about it. His face had turned a deep red and he'd yelled Bartemius to stay out of his room; that he was never home anyway, so why did he care?

* * *

_She was on her stomach, lying on the stone floor. It helped with the vertigo and stomach pain and, truthfully, she didn't have the energy to move. She traced her name in the mud: "Elizabeth Niamh Crouch."_

* * *

They had named Barty Jr. for his father, but the similarities between them ended there. Barty had always been everything his father was not. Bartemius valued order and law, whereas their son was rebellious, careless. Bartemius was staunch and iron in his resolve against the Dark Arts, while their son was drawn to them.

Bartemius hated the Death Eaters.

And their son became one.

* * *

"_I've still got my innocence!" Roared the man across the hall, his voice gravelly and rough. "You can take everything else away, but not that! I want my trial you bastards! WHEN'S MY TRIAL, CROUCH?"_

* * *

After her son's trial, Elsie couldn't function. She couldn't sleep, couldn't eat, cried for days on end. She became withdrawn and isolated. Friends she used to meet for tea became distant memories—she rarely left the house anymore. Her health deteriorated quickly. She had always been naturally small, but she became sickly looking—bony and emaciated. When she _did_ sleep, she had nightmares about their son—visions of him torturing that poor couple, or of him locked up with those terrifying people, screaming for her to help him. More often than not, she woke up screaming herself.

After they took her son away, Elsie spent her days in a dreamlike state, alternated with bursts of panic and depression. She sometimes brewed Draught of Peace, on particularly difficult days. It didn't put her to sleep, but it left her immobile on the sofa; disoriented and groggy, in that hazy place between awake and asleep. It was better than the nightmares, but not much. Visions of Barty's trial would play over and over again in her mind, as though living through it once hadn't been traumatic enough.

Her sweet boy chained to a chair in the middle of the court, crying for her and screaming at his father, begging him not to send him to Azkaban.

Seeing him like that, pale and helpless and in between those _criminals_…it broke her heart.

Then his sentence. _Life in Azkaban_.

For a split second she couldn't comprehend what it meant, until she had looked over at her husband and seen the look of nausea on his face. With a sickening jolt, she understood with more horror than she had ever felt that her baby was gone forever. It had been the blackest moment of her life and she thought she would die from the pain until finally, blessedly, she had fainted.

Barty had lost both of them that day—his son and his wife—as well as any ambition he had of ever becoming Minister. Everything he had believed in and worked so hard for and devoted his entire life—professional and personal—to, had been destroyed by their son.

He grieved in his own way, very differently from her. If he had been dedicated to the Ministry before their son's trial, he was obsessive about it now. He apparated out before the sun rose and often wasn't home until two in the morning. Gone were their evenings on the couch with his arm around her waist. When he _was_ home, he could barely look at her. She knew he believed that she blamed him for their son. Maybe she did. But she missed him all the same. Missed his smell of cigars and brandy; missed the way he kissed her on the cheek when he got home from work. Missed a time when he didn't look at her like she was fragile and heartsick. It was as if looking at her was painful to him. He knew her heart was broken and that he had been a part of that. The only time he spoke to her as he had before all this was when he thought she couldn't hear him. She almost never slept anymore, but she had taken to pretending; shutting her eyes quickly when she heard the front door open and waiting for him to come to bed, just to hear his voice.

Sometimes she would arrange herself on the couch so he would see her when he first came in. On these nights, she would hear the sound of his briefcase plunking onto the floor; his deep, weary sigh. She would feel the couch cushion give as he sat down beside her; his gentle fingers brushing the wispy hair out of her eyes; his warm lips pressed to her cold forehead. Other times, she would stay in the bed, where she had often lain all day. It was on these nights that he would lay beside her, running the back of his hand over her cheek with a heartbreaking sweetness. He would whisper to her all the things he couldn't say when he thought her to be awake. He would tell her how sorry he was, how much he loved her, that he missed their son so much he felt like he might die.

One night she opened her eyes and looked up at him. Her heart broke when she saw the tears in his eyes—tears for her and their son and their life that had been destroyed.

"Barty…"

She reached for him, but he was already gone, lacing his shoes up and gathering his briefcase, his face an emotionless mask. She didn't see him again for two days, but when he came home on Saturday night, he climbed into bed and kissed her softly on the side of her mouth. Neither of them acknowledged that she was awake, though she knew that he was well aware. They never spoke of it again and she loved him both for it and despite it. It was just his way.

* * *

_She reached for her husband but she was suddenly in her cell, confused, touching only the slick metal bars. Her cozy bed and warm fire were gone. The blueish light made it seem even lonelier. The man across the hall looked at her with pity._

* * *

Heartbroken isn't a strong enough word to describe what Elsie felt when she learned about her son's crimes. At first, she hadn't believed it. Her sweet Barty—the same boy who had spent all of his birthday money to buy her a pair of dress robes in her favorite color? There must have been a mistake, she'd thought. He couldn't have. But it wasn't a mistake. Bartemius had told her what he'd done to those poor Aurors—and they had a son, too. A little boy who would now be parentless because of _her_ son.

Then she'd been angry—so much so that she felt as though she would burst into flame. Angry at her son, for committing these inconceivable crimes. Angry at Bartemius for sending him to that awful place. And, more than anything, angry at herself. How could she have missed this? She was his _mother_.

The night before his trial she had fallen completely to pieces. She'd collapsed on the floor, sobbing, unable to move or breathe. Bartemius held her as she cried and all she could say, over and over, was "How could we let this happen?" She felt the terrible weight of responsibility for what Barty Jr. had done.

Then, quite suddenly, all the anger was gone and she could only feel sadness. The deepest, most painful sadness she had ever experienced.

When the Healers at St. Mungo's told her that she had two months to live, she knew what they had to do. It wasn't easy convincing Barty, but he came around eventually. He dismissed it out of hand at first. Told her absolutely not, it was out of the question, that even if he wanted to break the law it would be impossible. Then, one night, a week later, he had come home bearing the ingredients to brew Polyjuice Potion and a quiet plan. Elsie knew what it had taken for Bartemius to agree to this. He was abandoning every ideal he had dutifully upheld for more than twenty years. The sadness in his eyes on their last night together had devastated her, and she knew that he was doing this out of love for her—fulfilling her one last request. A going away gift. She had burst into tears—tears of relief, but also of mourning. She was saying goodbye to the only man she had ever loved, and it broke her heart.

Bartemius had begged her to reconsider; promised that he would take a leave of absence, spend every moment with her. It was so sweet, and she loved him for it, but she couldn't leave him knowing he would have no one but Winky to look after him. She would be dead in a matter of weeks, and their son would die in Azkaban, never having the chance to reconcile with his father. And her sweet Bartemius would be all alone.

No, she couldn't bear it. She wouldn't. There may not have been any hope for her, but there was for her boys. _Her boys_. They had loved each other so much once, and she was willing to sacrifice herself for the chance that they could love each other again.

* * *

_The rattling cough hurt her chest. Her throat was raw and torn._

_In the midst of this agony, Elsie Crouch smiled. She was saving _both_ of her sweet boys._


	5. Dolores Umbridge

The stone floor was uneven and sloping in the direction of the left wall, where a cluster of bugs floated, drowned in the collection of cold, stagnant water. The vile cell had a window (if the crudely cut gap in the stone could even be called that), but Dolores was far too short for it to be of any use or comfort to her. Even standing on the filth-caked mattress was no help. She had discovered she could get the slightest glimpse out of the tiny opening if she jumped in a very undignified manner, but she still couldn't see more than a patch of pale sky and the occasional flash of dark water. She rather wished she had no window at all, for on wet days (which came often there in the North Sea), the cold rain blew mercilessly into her cell. In fact, because the window was so small, the water streamed in with much greater force, pelting her skin painfully. It was on days like this that she was forced to drag her soiled mattress into the corner of the room and huddle behind it, breathing in the smell of mildew and decay until the rain had subsided. It had stormed relentlessly during Dolores' first days in Azkaban, the wintry air turning the downpour into half-frozen slush that felt like a thousand tiny knives. She was loathe to touch the repulsive mattress at first, but when her skin grew raw and blistered from the ceaseless onslaught, she gave in and crawled behind the mold-soaked mattress. The stench was nearly unbearable and she retched violently, vomiting the contents of her stomach down the front of her striped robes. Eyes watering from the acidity in her throat, she had called for a guard—screamed that she needed a new uniform at once but, of course, no one came. A hoarse voice from somewhere down the hall asked her very kindly if she needed help.

"Yes!" She called back, relieved to have any kind of contact with another person. "I've…stained my robes."

"Take 'em off, then. The dementors like plump 'uns!" The compassion in his voice had vanished, replaced with gleeful maliciousness.

Dolores covered her ears quickly, but not before she heard some of the obscene things the faceless man was crudely suggesting. She could feel hot, embarrassed tears pricking her eyes and she ordered herself not to cry.

Logically, of course, she knew that weight was not a factor in the dementors' level of interest in a human, but she still took some small comfort in the knowledge that she was rather skinny. In fact, Dolores Umbridge looked nothing like she had in her previous life—no longer plump or clad in pink, her hair, once so precisely styled, now hung in limp curls around her sallow, gaunt face. One could be forgiven for not recognizing her at all.

The Azkaban diet had been rather effective for Dolores—she had never been quite so thin. Even as a child she had always been overweight. It was one of the many things her mother hated about her. She had tried every possible diet—including appetite suppressing potions and several experimental spells—without any success.

Her mother would be proud now. Although, considering the fact that she was, after all, serving a life sentence in Azkaban, perhaps considerably less proud.

Dolores' mother was a monster. She had never been shy when it came to pointing out her children's flaws—Dolores' most especially. Chubby, bowlegged, too short—Dolores had heard it all. She pretended that it didn't matter but, of course, it did.

When her mother made an offhanded comment about the dull, common color of Dolores' brunette hair, she tried to dye it a pale blonde, like Florence Skeeter. The combination of muggle box dye and the color charm she had (very inexpertly) performed left her hair dry and brittle, falling out in clumps when she brushed it. Dolores cried the entire time as her sister cut off the damaged parts, leaving her with only a few inches of hair that was now exactly one shade lighter than it had been before.

"My God, Dolores, what have you done to your hair?" Her mother had gasped, unsuccessfully stifling a laugh. "They're going to think you're a _boy_!"

Panicked, staring into the spotted mirror at herself, she worried that her mother was right—perhaps she did look too masculine. She was already overlooked by all the boys—the thought of returning to Hogwarts for her fifth year looking like this was enough to bring tears to her eyes, and she decided something had to be done about it. Proud Slytherin though she was, Dolores Umbridge wore pink every single day after that.

* * *

Startled back to reality by the harsh clatter of the daily food tray, Dolores looked up and realized that the rain had lessened to a slight drizzle. She pushed the mattress off and stumbled over to the three small portions of bread and water. There was a small lump of cheese on the plate today, but it was so moldy that the surface was almost completely white. Dolores fought back the urge to be sick, which was made even more difficult by the fact that her hands now smelled exactly like the mattress she had just touched—a putrid combination of rat droppings, decay and stale urine. She was forced to eat on her hands and knees, using only her mouth to touch the bread—like a dog. She tried drinking the water in the same way, but accidentally knocked over her cup, splashing the liquid all over the floor where it mingled with the fetid water that already pooled there.

She let her head thump sadly against the stone wall. Perhaps she would die of dehydration. Surely death would be better than this. Would anyone miss her? _Did_ anyone miss her?

"_Cornelius_."

She wasn't sure if she'd spoken the words aloud or in her head. She thought of him often—Cornelius Fudge. Though she had worked tirelessly for Scrimgeour and Thicknesse after Cornelius resigned, her loyalties always lay with him. He was an excellent Minister, taking his dedication to laws and protocols very seriously. He was a wonderful man. She missed him quite terribly. In all honesty, he was the closest thing she had to a friend during her Ministry tenure (aside from Mafalda Hopkirk, who was kind to everyone.) Surely Cornelius would miss her, wouldn't he? After the years she spent working diligently for him, surely he must mourn her absence…wish to see her, perhaps? Although, she supposed with a nasty sinking feeling in her chest, she would never see him again as it were. Her sentence was for life—a concept so impossible that she couldn't seem to contain it in her mind. Thinking about forever made her head hurt, and the prospect of dying here…all alone…like _her_…

The fact that Dolores had a brother was generally common knowledge; however, no one except for Cornelius and her close friend Elizabeth was aware that she also had sister. Two years older than her, Dorothy Umbridge was beautiful—tall, thin and dainty—and extremely talented. Everything her mother wanted in a daughter and everything Dolores was not.

Dolores adored her sister, as did everyone else. They were very close, and Dorothy was the one person who could make Dolores feel better after a confrontation with mother—ironic, since the conflict with their mother usually stemmed from the differences between them: "A little makeup wouldn't go amiss once in a while, Dolores, not everyone is naturally beautiful like Dorothy," or "Surely you don't intend to _eat_ any of those, do you? It's alright for your sister, you know, she's thin as a rail. But you, well…"

After some of the nastier fights, Dorothy would crawl under the covers with her and they would read Witch Weekly by wandlight; giggling over cute Quidditch players and laughing until Dolores could barely breathe. Her sister was the bright spot in what was a very dull and joyless childhood. In fact, despite her mother's apparent hatred of her, she grew up quite happy...for a time.

Dolores had been the one to find her.

She had received her Hogwarts letter, but was still attending Muggle primary school until September. One afternoon, after Dorothy had skipped all her classes, Dolores had come home to find her asleep in her bed, curled up on her side with the covers and blankets pulled all the way over her head. Flinging her bag onto the floor, she collapsed onto the bed and sighed, staring up at the ceiling. It was boiling hot in their room; her back was already beginning to sweat.

"I think I might be sick tomorrow as well." She informed Dorothy. "I can't stand another day of that Justin Hooke prodding me in the back with his pencil and sticking bugs in my hair."

Dorothy said nothing and Dolores nudged her underneath the mound of blankets.

"Dorry, are you awake?"

Dolores could feel the sweat soaking through to her back, thick and sticky. She tugged at her blouse and when she pulled her hand away, it was covered in blood. Yelping, she leapt up and realized with horror that the covers were drenched with blood. She yanked the sheets back, revealing the body of her sister. Irrationally, she thought perhaps Dorothy had gotten her monthly or, perhaps, a nosebleed. What she found was nothing so trivial. Her sister's blank, glassy eyes stared hauntingly up at Dolores from a bloodless face—her forearms sliced vertically from wrist to elbow and her throat cut—so deep that the blood gurgling out was nearly black.

She threw herself back, crashing into the oakwood dresser. She must have been screaming, but she couldn't hear herself making any sound. When her brother found them, almost an hour later, she was sitting in a pool of blood and glass, the glittering shards from the broken mirror reflecting fragmented pieces of the horrible scene.

Later, after her body had been taken away, Dolores couldn't stop screaming. She'd screamed until her voice was gone, and even then she screamed still; a hoarse, breathy whisper. Her mother had shrieked at her to shut up, but not even the fear of punishment could have restrained her. Finally, late into the night, her mother charged into the sitting room and yanked Dolores up by the collar of her shirt, startling her into silence and nearly choking her. She dragged her down the hallway and shoved her through a doorway. Dolores could hear the familiar sound of a key turning in the old, rusty lock and realized with a dull stab of dread that she was back in her room. _Dorothy's_ room. Somewhere in her consciousness, her rational mind understood that she was in shock. The screaming had stopped, though, so her mother would sleep just fine.

Without realizing what she was doing, she had walked over to the window and crawled outside, landing with a muffled thump on the dew-soaked grass. She and Dorothy loved to sneak out here; late at night when no one was awake they would lie on their backs, looking up at the stars and dreaming about what they would do when they were free of this place. They had both been so looking forward to getting their Hogwarts letters but only one letter had come. For Dolores. It wasn't a surprise—she had been exhibiting signs of magic for years while Dorothy tried in vain to exhibit the slightest magical ability. Of course, this had done nothing to lessen their mother's hatred for Dolores. In fact, once she had concrete proof that her younger daughter was a witch (_"abomination, unholy aberration!"_), she seemed to go out of her way to make her life miserable. Funnily enough, although Dorothy _hadn't_ received a letter, their mother suddenly turned on her as well. For the first time in her life, their picked apart everything, from Dorothy's appearance to her clothing choice to her singing voice as she quietly hummed in the living room. Nothing she did was good enough; a sentiment Dolores knew well.

Plucking a wet blade of grass, Dolores felt the sharp pang of loss in her stomach. She was partly to blame. _If she hadn't been the magic one, if she had spent more time with Dorothy, if she hadn't gone to school today, if—_she pressed her fists against her ears and cried. This couldn't be. How could this be? Was she truly to be alone in the world?

Stifling a sob, she glared at the shadowy street. Quite suddenly, her temper flared and she set her jaw. She balled her hands into fists and resolved then and there that she would not let her sister have done this in vain. Dolores had never amounted to much in her mother's eyes but she could make damn sure she was respected by the Wizarding World. She would be proper and organized and perfect—everything Dorothy had tried so hard to be. She would go to Hogwarts in the fall and study as hard as she could—learn every piece of magic she could—and someday she would come back here and make her mother pay for what she had done. Her evil, narcissistic, harridan of a mother who had stolen everything from her—her happiness, her childhood and, now, her sister.

Dolores vowed that she would make something of herself. She would prove her mother wrong if it was the very last thing she did…and then she woke up one day to find that she had turned into her. She had become so obsessed with reputation and her advancement through the ranks of the Ministry—so consumed with the pursuit of power—that she never stopped to think about what she was sacrificing in the process.

"Heartless," they called her at the trial. "Cold," "prejudiced," "evil." As she had looked up at The Wizengamot, she saw herself as she appeared to them—she saw her mother reflected in their eyes.

The realization that she had become the very thing that she worked so hard to escape was unbearable. Worse, even, than spending the rest of her life in Azkaban. How could she live with what she had become? How could she face herself in the mirror, when the image looking back at her was the face she still had nightmares about?

And how could she change, with nothing but her life sentence stretched out before her? An eternity of suffering and pain with no end in sight.

* * *

When Dolores was first promoted to Senior Undersecretary to the Minister of Magic, one of her many jobs had been processing the Azkaban death notices—taking care of all the paperwork and occasionally passing them along to Cornelius if the bodies were needed as evidence or there was a dispute over who would claim them. She quickly lost count of how many prisoners had died by their own hand. Once in a while there was an unusual suicide—one man tried to chew through the iron bars. He was found with his head so mangled that they were unable to determine whether the shattered tooth fragments were a result of his unsuccessful meal or from bashing his head against the stone wall until he lost consciousness. More often, however, it was the garden variety self-starvation. It seemed rather dull to her, at the time; simply another form to fill out. She certainly never thought about how difficult it would be to override the body's drive for preservation. In fact, before her imprisonment, she found the concept of suicide to be cowardly and ridiculous, if she gave it any thought at all.

Now, after a handful of failed attempts, it seemed much harder.

She had never tolerated pain very well, so the head-bashing method wasn't in the cards for her. Much too barbaric. She had considered starvation; in fact, it seemed like one of the more humane options. After all, how difficult could it be? The food was unfit for consumption as it were—a hunk of bread that was molding and more often than not infested with insects, and a filthy cup of spoiled water—and simply abstaining would surely be the most passive way to end one's life.

She tried not eating. She tried so hard, but it was as if she couldn't help herself. Her body just ate, like it was on autoplane, or whatever that ridiculous muggle contraption was called. Dolores knew that eventually—someday, years before her life would have ended outside of Azkaban—her body would succumb to the poor nutrition and lack of hygienic conditions, but even that was years away still.

Dolores didn't want to go mad. The thought of being unable to control her own mind was terrifying to her. And if she was to die in this hellhole anyway, what was the use in waiting? Why suffer through one more day of this torture when all she had to look forward to was fear and rot and regret? She had never been a time-waster and, if it was business she was about, she figured it was time to get about it.

She wished she could curl her hair—maybe put on a bit of makeup. She shuddered at the thought of Cornelius seeing her like this—hair long and unkempt, bags the size of the French Ministry under her eyes. Her nails, too, looked like something out of a Muggle horror film, although they, at least, would serve their purpose. They were quite long now. She examined them carefully, the plan playing on repeat in her mind. _Would she truly have the nerve to go through with it?_

* * *

The first few scratches made her wrist red and angry but didn't break the skin. Taking a deep breath, she dug her nails in harder, gasping as a tiny drop of scarlet blood trickled out. It wasn't enough; it was too shallow, it would never work. Casting around desperately, her eyes landed on a small rock lying on the floor. It was a sea-slick piece of the stone wall that had chipped from window, and Dolores had been using it to keep track of how long she had been there, a tally mark on the wall for each day that passed. The stone was about the size of a snitch, but it was sharp enough, and she'd get much better leverage than she had with her fingernails. She picked it up and examined its jagged edges for a moment before plunging it into her forearm, squeezing her eyes shut as the point of the rock pierced her flesh.

Breathing heavily, she let the stone drop from her hand, where it landed on the floor with a dull thud. Looking down with an equal measure of satisfaction and horror, she examined the gash. It was only a couple inches long, but very deep.

_The Ministry would be tasked with informing her family. But she had no family._

Eyes watering in pain, she closed her teeth upon the ragged flap of skin and wrenched as hard as she could. The skin tore easily and her head swam as her mouth flooded with the taste of iron. Her eyes slid in and out of focus.

_The Senior Undersecretary to the Minister would be contacted to inquire as to whether anyone would come and collect her body._

Delirious from pain and shock, she imagined Cornelius receiving the letter, in his bathrobe and slippers, drinking his morning coffee with bleary eyes and rumpled hair.

_This must have been what Dorothy's last moments felt like._

She felt even colder than she had before. She could smell her own blood, mixing with the sour water on the floor. Her breath came in shallow pants, slower and slower with each passing moment. The light was growing dim. She couldn't hear anything anymore. And with one final exhale, Dolores joined her sister forever.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

I had almost this entire chapter written before I realized that there were no more Dementors at Azkaban during Umbridge's time there, but let's just call this poetic license.  
Anyway, this was a very strange chapter for me. I, like everyone, pretty much can't stand Dolores Umbridge (although I do love Imelda Staunton), but writing this kind of made me like her, just the tiniest bit. I know JKR has said that Umbridge despised her mother just because she was a Muggle, but no one becomes that evil without having some kind of significant abuse or trauma in their past. I don't know, I just felt like there had to be more to her than what we saw, and this is what I came up with. (And I, too, have a mother like Umbridge's, so I suppose I can relate, lol.)

Thanks so much for reading!  
Xx LimeGreenSockFeet xX


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